Hi guys! I hope you had an awesome weekend! Did you do anything fun? Saturday we went to the Gluten Free and Allergen Free Expo. As I mentioned before, we don't have any food allergies but the hubs is trying to go gluten free more to help with his hypothyroid. It was a fun expo and for only $12 bucks so worth it with all the yummy food samples and loot you get! It's good to know people who do have the food allergies have more options nowadays.
Fun Photo Booth at the expo. I thought my sign was funny so of course I picked that one. The lil guy looks so excited to be there.
Sunday, I had my girlfriends come over to play with some Jamberry! I love girl time and I love my girls! Check out our adorable jamicures! Mine is the third picture and I must say I'm loving the floral designs more lately. Please ignore my dry cuticles. Ew. You can see more Jamberry products on my website at www.bernlugo.jamberrynails.com. I will definitely post more about my Jam addiction in the future.
So meal planning. I seriously think if you are trying to lose weight, eat healthier, save money, save time, and save your sanity all while creating good meals for you and your fam....meal planning is the way to go! During my days as a health coach, this was probably one of the most important things I recommended to my clients. There's really no wrong or right way, it's all about doing it in a way that is effective and enjoyable for you. I'll dedicate a post later to just meal planning so I can give you some tips. I don't meal plan for breakfast since I always have the same green smoothie, whole wheat bagel with fat free cream cheese and lox or some scrambled egg whites with veggies in it. For lunch, it's always some sort of salad, sandwich or my dinner leftovers from the night before. So here's my dinner meal plan for this week:
MONDAY- Chinese noodle soup with shiitake mushrooms and bok choy. It's usually something meatless because it's Meatless Monday ya'll!
TUESDAY- Hasselback chicken - Can't wait to try this one!
WEDNESDAY- Dinner plans with a girlfriend! We always have our monthly sushi and grocery shopping at Trader Joe's date. Since she's not a fan of rice vinegar so we always order our rolls riceless. No carb Wednesday, woohoo!
THURSDAY- Roasted lemon pepper salmon with a side of steamed broccoli. I know, not that exciting but it's yum, easy peasy to make and healthy!
FRIDAY- Dinner with my girlfriends! Leaving some chicken marsala in the slow cooker for the hubs and lil guy.
Now, sometimes I stray a lil from my meal plan. For example, I might not be in the mood for salmon or I forgot an ingredient for the hasselback chicken. If that's the case, I just go to plan B of browsing my pantry and fridge for something to throw together. It usually works out but I definitely try to stick with my meal plan. It's not fun browsing around when you're hungry. Lols
Chinese Noodle Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms and Bok Choy
Serves 2 adults and a toddler
My favorite noodles to use when I make padthai. These were the only noodles I had on hand so I used these.
Last time my mom was in town, she bought these "Chinese special spices" because her friend, who is a chef, recommended it. I was expecting to find MSG and a whole bunch of crazy stuff I couldn't pronounce in the ingredients. To my surprise, it's simply anise, fennel, coriander, cinnamon, clove and sugar. Hopefully not tons of sugar.
Ta-da! Ok, I went a tad overboard with the pepper but other than that it turned out great. The broth was light and tasty, most importantly I finally didn't overcook the bok choy! Hooray!
Ingredients
1 carton of chicken stock * see notes
2 cups of water
1 bag of Chinese spices *see notes
2 slices of ginger or 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1-2 teaspoons of gluten free soy sauce, regular soy sauce or fish sauce
4-5 baby bok choy
1/2-1 cup cooked noodles of your choice. Depends how noodle-y you want it.
1/2 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms
Directions
1. Bring chicken stock and water to boil in a pot.
2. Add the bag of Chinese herbs, soy sauce, ginger and noodles.
3. Boil noodles for whatever length of time is listed on box, remove and set aside.
4. Check your broth, if some of the liquid has evaporated you can add a little more chicken broth.
5. Add the baby bok choy and boil for only 2-3 minutes, remove and set aside. These babies cook fast and if you overcook them you will have soggy bok choy. I know from experience. Don't make my mistakes. lols
6. Bring pot to a simmer/low heat and throw in the shiitake mushrooms.
7. Taste your soup if it needs more soy sauce, ginger, etc...
8. Places some noodles in a bowl, add the bok choy and pour some of that yummy soup over it.
Notes
I apologize I didn't measure this because I just dumped the whole carton in. I used the organic chicken stock from Costco and it's 32 FL OZ.
Chances are you don't have these herbs already in your pantry. But I think if you sautéed garlic, ginger and onions in the pan first and then added the stock to boil you should come up with a good flavor. I'm thinking you could probably add some Chinese Five Spice to it too?!
I pretty much made up this soup because I wanted to try that little bag of Chinese spices. So if you don't like it, I don't want to hear it. Just kidding. I would like to hear if you made it and added anything else to it! I think that's the fun part about cooking, you can do whatever you want and try whatever you want! So get creative and add any veggies or noodles you like. Even meat, I bet chicken would be great in it :-)
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